WordPress for Business Class 9 (Online Video) Slides: http://wpacademy.tv/w5-9.pdf
Class 9 - Agenda WP Academy new business model Why use online video Shooting, Editing, Distributing video Video resolution and bitrate Video sources & Equipment choices Lighting recommendations Teleprompters Screen capture options Video editing software choices Distributing video Posting public video to Youtube Posting private video to your site with JWPlayer (using http streaming) Capturing and editing a webcam from Windows Movie Maker Editing and publishing in Sony Vegas Studio Noise removal and normalizing audio in Audacity Introduction to RTMP Streaming with AWS / Cloudfront
WP Academy New model starts this week Switching to continuous enrollment (pre-recorded lectures) & Monthly membership model all other services continue unchanged. Why? Dramatically lower pricing on all services (to expand the reach of our program) New primary resource is the WP Encyclopedia (previously WordPress LMS). This is going to Book+DVD in the summer of 2013 and is a major project (about 1 1/2 manyears) Advantages: Greater quality of content, granularity of information, lower cost Disadvantage: Less interactivity (BUT coaching groups continue) Starting from January 14, two membership levels: Bronze is equivalent to LMS membership (Content but no support) - $25/mth Silver is similar to Webinar level - $50/mth + $100 buy-in Between now and January 13, Charter Member pricing (one-time fee for content). All Webinar5, LMS and others are grandfathered-in to Charter Member Plus already Details: http://wpacademy.com Bonuses for Webinar students ( Charter Member Plus ) Lifetime content access (as for all Charter Members) Free coaching groups & stock photos until June 30, 2013 (thereafter $30/mth) Ongoing (min. 2-year) access to themes / unlimited downloads Reduced price for Silver (coaching groups) after June 2013
Why Use Online Video? According to the top source for digital marketing data, comscore, having video on your website causes: 52% of viewers to take action after watching A 20% increase in the amount of traffic to your website An increase in the amount of time visitors spend on your site Clicks for more information to increase by 30-40% Phone calls to your business to increase 16-20% Having video on your website is 53 times more likely to generate a first page Google ranking than traditional SEO But perhaps more important than anything: More people are likely to watch your video than read your beautiful prose! (particularly if you make it interesting & entertaining) Posting videos is proof of your seriousness and commitment Content is no longer King authenticity is King there are few better tools for creating rapport than well-done video
Video resolution and bitrate Video can be shot in two aspect ratios this is usually camera-preset: HD (16:9 aspect ratio): 1920 x 1080 px or 1280 x 720 px SD (4:3 aspect ratio): 640 x 480 or 1024 x 768 Video bitrate determines the video file size: You want to minimize this during video rendering, consistant with a good video quality. Rule of thumb: 364 kbps (bits per second) for low-res video; 764 kbps for high-res video (=5.7 Mega bytes / sec. My videos are about 3 MB/s screen shares are less resource consuming than live action) If you start to see image artifacts or jumpy video, increase the bitrate of rendering Set your camera resolution before shooting most cameras will shoot HD or SD but not both. Promotional video is usually 640x480 (SD) or 640x360 (HD) All web video should be produced as mp4 for ipad if distributing on your site. (If you are uploading to Youtube it doesn t matter, produce as highres WMV or whatever). Screen recordings or Powerpoint recording: normally record at 1024x768 For Green Screen use maximum resolution of your camera and then reduce during rendering
Shooting: choice of camera Cameras are $80 - $5000 depending mostly on: Quality of video, color correction / white balance, image stabilization, etc Resolution Quality of lens and zoom External microphone All video cameras these days record directly to SD Card (which you then transfer to your computer via the USB port, and edit with software); but Webcam video must be captured from video software Most web video 640x480 (4:3 aspect ratio) so you don t need high-res camera Almost any cheap camera will have good enough video for web (although lighting is important) Good starter camera is Kodak Playtouch (< $100, no external mic) but there are quite a few in this price range Old camcorder with USB capture / output will work Webcam also will work but they aren t normally designed for shooting stand-up video. Webcam audio is often quite good Try to Logitech Wecam Pro 9000 ($80)
Shooting: Sound Quality of sound is actually more important than video quality Best to use Lavalier (lapel) external mic, such as Audio Technica ATR-3350 ($17.00!) or Radio Shack equivalent model Noise removal with Audacity works well. You don t want hissing or static on your audio. I have had problems with using external mics on cheap cameras you may need to record audio separately and sync it to the video in software (Sony Vegas). If using a cheap camera without external mic, you will have to do this if you want good audio (exception: webcam mics generally good) Podcasting mic s are higher-end $100-200 and designed to reduce breathing sounds etc Google it.
Lighting (1) Can use outdoor if available and quiet (informal may be an advantage) OR use indoor / natural light (need big windows and even lighting, choose good time of day, avoid direct sunlight) OR use 3-point lighting : I use 500W Halogen shop light from Home Depot for key light, and 40W Compact-Fluorescents for fill and back lights about $100-120 total (look at CowboyStudio.com)
Lighting (2) Background choice: 1. Sit on a couch 2. Back to a wall with bookshelf, flower, picture, etc 3. Back to flat-color (ie white) background from cheap fabric store. 4. Accented lighting makes it look nice also. A good example of good lighting & video Amy Porterfield on Facebook or Dave McSpadden 5. If doing green-screen, get a green felt (not fluorescent green), or else some stretchy green fabric that won t crease. Green-screen requires very even lighting on the background If using flat background, sit or stand about half-way between background and camera (background should be out-of-focus) Shoot scenes multiple times until you have it down. Camera remote can be very helpful for this. Memorize your script! For longer scripts you can buy or construct a teleprompter using beamsplitter (mirror) glass and a laptop, see this video or google video teleprompter. Alternatively, speak in segments with the script taped to the wall and then edit out the reading segments. Talk loud and not too fast, with minimum of hype, but need to maintain energy. Smile. Speak directly to your assistant act as if you are giving them the wisdom of all the ages, but be believable it s a balancing act.
My Setup - Front Camera Fill Light (Can also be a simple reflector) Key Light
My Setup - Back Key Light Fill Light Back lights
Software Video editing software Windows Movie Maker (free) or imovie good for cutting video and titling Sony Vegas Pro ($60) good mid-range choice (does titling, fade-in, greenscreen etc) Screen Capture / Powerpoint capture software Camtasia is professional product $300 (see our tutorial video) Camstudio is free, but it generates AVI files which you will need to convert to MP4 using software such as AVS4YOU. (Can use this to capture Powerpoints etc) Jing also works well (free version limited to 5 minutes) You can try to get someone on Fiverr.com to make you a video opener
How to do Green Screen You can put an image background or even a video background by masking out the green screen background in software (Sony Vegas) Good example here I will make a supplementary video about this
Distributing your video With Youtube or Vimeo (embed on your site) With JWPlayer plugin and local mp4 file In an email (make an image and link the image inside the html mail to your video page) With JWPlayer or Easy Video Player, using Amazon Web Services / Cloudfront (good for static images too) Via RTMP using JWPlayer plugin and AWS / Cloudfront Use WP Academy s Secure RTMP Player for secure (protected) video distribution via AWS / Cloudfront (prevents people from downloading and/or hotlinking to your videos)